Offshore platforms used in the exploration and production of oil and gas reserves located in arctic offshore regions must be capable of resisting the loads exerted by ice floes and various other ice formations present in arctic waters. These ice loadings can exert enormous lateral forces which in many instances are sufficient to damage or topple a conventional offshore platform. To resist these forces, arctic platforms are designed to be highly resistant to lateral loadings and typically include some feature to deflect or break ice floes contacting the platform.
In regions with low to moderate ice environments, such as the Norton Sound, Cook Inlet and Chukchi regions of offshore Alaska, the ice environment exists only over the fall, winter, and spring months and largely disappears during the summer. This allows for an open water construction period during the summer. The maximum ice loading events in these low to moderate ice environments are somewhat lower than those occurring in harsher environments such as the Beaufort Sea region north of Alaska. The platform of the present invention is designed to resist the many arctic ice loadings present in low to moderate ice environment regions to provide a stable structure for conducting hydrocarbon exploration and production operations in such regions.
Also, due to the often frigid and otherwise hostile environment of many arctic regions, it is desirable to minimize the amount of onsite fabrication and construction required in establishing an arctic offshore platform. The platform of the present invention is designed to require a minimum of such onsite fabrication and construction.